Kentucky Volleyball Sweeps No. 5 Penn State

It was a two-setter show for the Wildcats, who inserted true freshman Kassie O’Brien into the fold in the second set Friday night, as the Texan dished out 27 assists on the night and threw in three kills of her own into the match in her first attempt setting. UK hit .452 in the second set behind O’Brien’s setting and she also had two blocks in the match, as well.

As a team, Kentucky owned the net, outblocking PSU 11-5 on the night with seven stuffs coming off the hands of junior middle blocker, Lizzie Carr. Kennedy Washington had four blocks for the Wildcats and Molly Tuozzo had 15 digs on the night to lead the Wildcats in that category. Every Kentucky hitter git above .230 on the match, including five players who had a hitting percentage of .350 or higher behind the setting of Kassie O’Brien and Ava Sarafa, who set the opening set and a half for the Wildcats.

Kentucky is now 2-1 on the season and will play New Hampshire at 2 p.m. ET to conclude the weekend on Saturday afternoon in State College. The match will be broadcasted on BTN Plus with the proper subscription.

Set 1

The first set was extremely tight in the early going as neither team garnered more than a two-point lead until 18-15 when a Brooklyn DeLeye extended-rally swing pushed UK out in front, 18-15. Kentucky scored the opening two points of the match off of Asia Thigpen kills and then Penn State ran of three in four to equal the score at 4-4 and the entirety of the set was played within that two-point window until the long rally termination by DeLeye, which came after the media timeout at 15-14 as PSU took the lead into the stoppage. Kentucky’s lead grew to five points, which was the highest it got all set, as Brooklyn DeLeye hammered her eighth kill to the floor to give Kentucky a 21-16 lead. Penn State then won four of the next five to pull to within a pair of points at 22-20 and UK burned its first timeout up by two needing three points to win the set. A pair of blocks on the next two points gave UK a 24-21 lead and a back-row attack kill ended the set on Brooklyn DeLeye’s ninth kill of the night. UK hit .371 in the set with 17 kills on 35 swings, Ava Sarafa had 14 assists and Lizzie Carr led the way with three stuff blocks as Eva Hudson pushed the pace with a quartet of digs.

Set 2

Kentucky inserted freshman Kassie O’Brien into the lineup at the setter position in the second set and controlled things from start to finish as UK hit over .350 en route to a 25-16 second-set win to go up two sets to none in the match. The largest lead of the set came at the end when UK was ahead by nine points, but it was hovering between five and seven points for a majority of the time with UK taking the 15-8 advantage at the media timeout and then 17-10 a few points later as the Wildcats were putting their foot on the gas. DeLeye had a few more kills in the set to push her total to 14 for the match at the intermission with Kentucky ahead, two sets to love.

Set 3

Penn State led for a majority of the third set, until a run pushed by Asia Thigpen and Brooklyn DeLeye gave the Wildcats their first lead of the set at 22-21 on an ace by Brooklyn DeLeye into the middle of the court and the campfire ate up the Nittany Lions. DeLeye then got PSU out of system in the succeeding point to give the Wildcats a point on Eva Hudson’s 10th kill of the night and UK got to set point at 24-22. Penn State called its final timeout and won the next point out of the timeout to push the score to 24-23 and an Eva Hudson kill from the left pin ended the match with Kentucky picking up the sweep.